Utah: America's Reddest State Has Lost Its Moral Compass on Illegal Immigration

After suffering legislative reverses in 2008 and 2010 when bills passed that mandated the use of E-Verify, Utah's large, pro-illegal alien establishment has reasserted its political power.

Although Utah is considered to be the reddest of the red states because it consistently elects Republicans, that does not mean that it is conservative nor does it mean that its moral compass is working.

With the virtual collapse of the Democrat Party as a viable entity in Utah because of its rejection of the social values held by Mormons who make up the majority of voters, the Republican Party has become the home for many Democrats because that is where the power to get things done lies. The net result is that the Republican Party now has progressives, liberals, libertarians, moderates, and conservatives all in a single party that controls all branches of Utah government.

The main thing that links these disparate elements together is their membership in the Mormon Church and, for a large percentage of the legislators, their willingness to subordinate their strongly held political beliefs to the demands of the Church.

With only limited exceptions, the few elected Democrats in the legislature stick together in their unquestioning support for illegal aliens.

On the Republican side, rural Republicans insist that agriculture has to have access to illegal alien labor in order to survive and they fight all efforts to restrict their ability to hire illegal aliens who are committing multiple job-related felonies.

The Democratic legislators and rural Republican legislators are joined by urban Republicans who are masterfully manipulated by the Salt Lake Chamber, which untiringly works to ensure that its members have access to a large, captive workforce of illegal aliens. Of course, the Chamber always frames the immigration issue as one of crops rotting in the fields rather than as a demand for low-cost construction, hospitality, and other workers who take positions that Americans will do.

A final group that generally comes down on the side of those exploiting illegal aliens for profit are doctrinaire, libertarian Republicans. These elected officials believe in totally open borders and the absolute right of employers to hire whomever they want regardless of the harm it does to American workers and the thousands of Utah children who are the victims of illegal-alien-driven identity theft.

During most of the past decade, this coalition of Democrats and disparate Republicans provided the votes needed to pass illegal-alien-friendly legislation, including a $5 million in-state tuition program and driving privilege cards for illegal aliens.

The Mormon Church intervenes whenever necessary to hold this coalition together in order to protect its large Latin American interests and to preserve its ability to baptize illegal aliens in the United States, even though these individuals are committing and continue to commit job-related felonies that impact hundreds of thousands Utahns, including thousands of Mormon children.

Shocked by the passage of E-Verify legislation in 2008 and 2010 and faced with the possibility that the legislature would pass strong enforcement legislation, abolish in-state tuition for illegal aliens, and end the issuance of driving privilege cards, the pro-illegal alien coalition – with the full support of the Mormon Church – reasserted its power in 2011.

Initially, the pro-illegal alien coalition implemented the disingenuous Utah Compact, then with the full force of the Mormon Church behind it, it passed a Utah guest worker program which is also known as either the “Employers Dream Act” or “Bramnesty.” This program relegates illegal aliens to virtual involuntary servitude.

When it appeared that the Employers Dream Act might fail, the Mormon Church's lobbyists strong-armed legislators into voting for it despite the fact that it went against Mormon principles of compassion, support for the of rule of law, and belief in free agency. On the other hand, Catholic Bishop Wester saw through what was going on and refused to support the legislation.

At the present time, there is no question that the power is firmly back in the hands of the powerful elite that supports illegal aliens.

The governor, leaders of both Houses of the Utah legislature, and a majority of the members of the legislature appear to be determined to consolidate the gains they made during the last legislative session.

They are also committed to killing any legislation that limits the ability of employers to hire illegal aliens or that adversely affects the Mormon Church's worldwide interests even if that means going against what is best for Utah and the nation.

The bottom line is that Utah's major business, political, civic, and religious leaders and organizations will continue to support illegal aliens for their own profit while willingly and knowingly sacrificing thousands of Utah children to illegal-alien employment-related identity theft.

Utah may be the reddest state in the nation but when it comes to illegal immigration it has lost its moral compass.

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985. It is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.